In truth this "_verte Gruyere_" shut away from the world by its mountains as Ireland is by the sea, is like a lost island, fabled, remote, its speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant vassals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs and legends in the rich and melodious Gruyere speech, still pastoral, this country has been celebrated in its exquisite, unchanging beauty by many poets; its romances and its national song have been the themes of dramatic and musical inspirations. Not yet has the cruel light of modern day chased the fairies, the may-maidens, the "servans" and the evil spirits from the forests and the caves. The place where the devil, joining in a coraule, drew the dancing people over a precipice is still shunned by young and old; with pride also will they point out the slope of the Gruyere hill where when the men were fighting at the _Pre de Chenes_ the women drove their goats, each bearing a lighted candle, through the darkness upon an invading horde of Bernois, who, thinking they were devils, fled in affright. For the refreshment of the good spirits who guard the herds, basins of fresh milk are still set in every mountain chalet. The origin of the Gruyere customs, like the coraules and the still observed habit of hanging wreaths on their door posts or in the oak groves, have a derivation of the most distant antiquity, in the Chaldean cradle of the race, in the myths of India and the Orient. The personified forces of Nature, the cloud wraiths of the mountains, the lisping voices of the streams, for many centuries haunting the imaginations of the people, still live in their legends, as they do in Celtic Ireland. The idyllic loveliness of the country is deliciously completed by the vines which are trained over the houses, by the flowers which grow in their windows, so that from spring to November Gruyere is a garden, ringed by blue mountains under a sky of pure blue. In the Romand country are many exquisite towns such as Romont and Rue, Estavayer, Oron and Morat--happily preserved in their unaltered mediaeval perfection. But the heart of this country is Gruyere, impregnated with the romance of the departed days of chivalry, its people affectionately faithful to the memory of their noble and beloved rulers. As for the Celtic wit, ever present in their sayings and legends, it is characteristically shown in the following little story of the "Fountain of Lessoc." THE FOUNTAIN OF LESSOC